Are we talking about paid leave? I wasn't. The majority of people don't get paid leave for anything other than limited sick leave and vacation time.
Also, you said: "In addition, pregnancy unlike a heart attack or illness is a choice and I think that affects peoples attitudes rightly or wrongly, but I think it does justify the need for a different sort of discussion."
A different kind of discussion, yes, but as I'm sure you know, many pregnancies are not a choice while many heart attacks and other medical conditions can be seen to be the result of clear choices. Should we start deciding how much leave a person is entitled to based on their lifestyle choices? Poor diet, obesity, lack of exercise all contribute to the likelihood of a heart attack and other medical conditions just as much as not using birth control (or being unable to afford it or having it fail) contributes to pregnancies.
The point I am making is that producing and raising the next generation should be seen to be a shared effort. It should not be seen to be solely a woman's responsibility, though that is what has been behind our attitude toward pregnancy and child care in this country. Like it or not, we're all in this together.
Lois
You make some good points and I agree with you to an extent but to say the two are equivalent is not exactly correct. The majority of pregnancies are planned and a happy occurrence. When an employee makes that choice and then takes an extended leave that may not be available to others and which may create a hardship for others I can understand the negative sentiment that some people have towards it. I am not saying its correct but its human nature.
Obviously every situation is different and each person is different. I think at least a small part of this is that unfortunately some of the people who try to take advantage of the system ruin it for the rest who aren't. My wife is an Ob/gyn and most of her patients work until the week before their due date, take their allotted 4-6 weeks of disability and are back at work when its up, but their are others who try to get her to falsify their records so they can go out 2 months before their due date simply because they feel entitled to have the time off. Others try to get their leave extended a month or more asking her to manufacture some illness because they would like more time off even though they are medically fine. In most of these cases they are trying to apply for extended disability so they can get paid for this time off which means you and I would pay the bill. These are by far the minority but as with most things its the people who abuse the system who ruin it for the rest.
I agree that as a society we should all pitch in to raise the next generation in the best conditions possible, I'm not sure I entirely agree with the sentiment that its our job as a society to "produce" the next generation though. That may have been true when we were small villages but in an overcrowded, overpopulated world I'm not sure we should be providing incentives to have more children by providing societal support. I do agree it should not be the woman's sole responsibility. Its an unfortunate hold over from our climb out of the primordial mud that women end up doing the lions share of the work. I think its slowly changing but giving women even more maternity leave only perpetuates that typecast role doesn't it? Wouldn't it be better if we required men to take an equivalent time off when mom's maternity leave runs out so they can play a role and give her a break?
There is no way to ever make this completely fair. Men just can't have babies and most likely never will but its important to strike an acceptable balance with maternity leave between whats fair to the woman and what's fair the her employer and coworkers. I think we both agree on that. No one here is saying a woman should get unlimited leave after a pregnancy and no one is saying she shouldn't get any. We are really just discussing how much is fair and obviously everyone is going to have a different opinion there. I'm not really sure how you determine that issue except to decide as a society what we think is fair, keeping in mind that there is a cost to others even if its unpaid leave.